Building Con Dao into high-quality tourism and service city

The resolutions of the 6th Ba Ria - Vung Tau provincial Party Committee Congress (tenure 2015-2020) has defined Con Dao as a key area for priority investment in the next five years.
The province will mobilize every human and financial resource to develop the district island into a high-quality tourism and service area, in combination with enhancing national defense to contribute to firmly protecting the sovereignty of the seas and islands.
Con Dao has huge potential for tourism development with 200 kilometers of coastline with dozens of beautiful beaches, pure blue water and colorful coral reefs. The island is home to the site of a historic prison, thousands of graves of revolutionary soldiers, a national park, festivals and intangible cultural heritages. In recent years, the island has paid more attention to investment and building infrastructure systems such as airports and wharfs which have had a positive impact on tourism activities.
According to the provincial People’s Committee, the locality greeted over 440,000 tourist arrivals between 2010 and 2015, in which foreign arrivals were 87,000, an average increase of 21.1% a year. Tourism turnover reached VND1.37 trillion, an average rise of 45% a year.
Over the past few years, Con Dao attracted investment into several large projects on the island including; the Con Dao National Park and Poulo Condor tourist area in Bai Vong – Co Ong. Aiming to develop the island into a high-quality tourism and service area, from 2013, the Government approved preferential policies and mechanisms for Con Dao, including decreasing enterprise income tax to 10%, reducing 50% of individual income tax and applying zero percent of value added tax to basic investment and construction fees.
Nguyen Van Trinh, Chairman of the Ba Ria - Vung Tau provincial People’s Committee said that Con Dao is pushing the progress of the overall plan for the Con Dao national tourist site by 2020, with a vision to 2030. The province has proposed that the Government add capital to the road project in the northern island centre, upgrade Con Ong airport, resume flights from Vung Tau to Con Dao and vice versa and increase more flights from Ho Chi Minh city to Con Dao.
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Tung, Secretary of the Con Dao District Party Committee noted that the locality will focus on break-through solutions in the upcoming time. Specifically, Con Dao will speed up the building of Con Dao city and apply specific administrative management mechanisms for Con Dao, creating momentum for the district to become a national modern economic, tourism and service area in combination with landscapes and revolutionary fighting tradition./.